Wet) Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Skeena River Region 379

Ondatra zibethica spatulata (Osgood). Northwestern Muskrat

Fairly common in Kispiox Valley, where three adults and eight
young (nos. 32688-32698) were collected in August and September.
These specimens are decidedly dark colored, compared with Alaskan
skins, and are probably intermediate toward osoyoosensis. In external
measurements also they are similarly intermediate according to the
figures given by Hollister (1911, pp. 22, 25).

Zapus saltator Allen. Stikine Jumping Mouse

Twenty specimens collected near Hazelton, three in Kispiox Valley,
and one on Nine-mile Mountain (nos. 32706-32728, 32731). All are
adult. Our latest lowland capture of Zapus was on July 18, and up
to that time apparently no young were yet born. No nursing females
were caught, and only two that were pregnant, one taken on June 14
containing five small embryos, one on June 16, containing six. The
one specimen from Nine-mile Mountain (adult female, July 27) was
caught in a thick growth of veratrum just above timber line, at about
4500 feet altitude. It is small, compared with lowland specimens, but
does not otherwise depart from the characters of saitator, and this
small size may indicate nothing more than an extreme of variation in
the species.

This series of Zapus saltator from the Skeena Valley, compared
with a somewhat larger series from the upper Stikine Valley, presents
no obvious points of difference. In each lot there is considerable
variation in color, a number of specimens being noticeably grayish, as
compared with a larger proportion of reddish-colored ones.

Zapus hudsonius hudsonius (Zimmermann). ~
Hudson Bay Jumping Mouse

Two specimens taken near Hazelton, an adult male on June 15, an
adult female on June 18 (nos. 32729, 32730). These were caught in
the same trap line with the more numerous Zapus saltator. They were
submitted for identification to Mr. Edward A. Preble, of the United
States Biological Survey, who remarks that he ‘‘cannot separate them
from typical hudsonius.’’ In this connection it is of interest to recall
the capture by the present writer of a Jumping mouse of the Zapus
hudsonius group (tentatively identified as Z. h. alascensis), on Revil-
lagigedo Island, Alaska (see Swarth, 1911, p. 185), which island is

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